Summary:
Features include 1) a pale tan or cinnamon pink cap that is viscid in the center and is densely covered with matted hair and bearded at the margin, 2) white scanty milk that turns yellow, turns tissue yellow, or stains white paper yellow, 3) decurrent close, narrow, whitish to pink gills, 4) a dry stem similar in color to the cap but slightly pinker, 5) a slowly, slightly peppery taste, 6) growth under birch, 7) a white to cream spore deposit, and 8) elliptic spores with amyloid warts and ridges. Note that the staining reaction is the primary difference between var. pubescens and var. betulae: this distinction by Hesler(4) is basically the same as that between var. torminosus and var. nordmanensis of L. torminosus. In their words, "L. betulae is to L. pubescens what L. nordmanensis is to L torminosus." (Latin names italicized). The description is derived from Hesler(4) except where noted.

Gills:
"decurrent, moderately close, narrow"; ''pale flesh color (pinkish) or pallid with a pinkish reflection''; edges even, (Hesler), yellowish white to pale orange or light orange, (Methven), white with a slight salmon tinge, (Phillips)

Stem:
3-8cm x 1-1.8cm at top, equal or nearly so, solid then hollow; similar color to cap but slightly pinker; dry, subfibrillose to unpolished, when old somewhat pruinose, (Hesler), pale orange (Methven)

Veil:
[none]

Odor:
not distinctive

Taste:
slowly and slightly peppery, (Hesler), peppery, milk strongly peppery, (Methven)

Microscopic spores:
spores 6.5-8 x 5.5-6.5 microns, elliptic, amyloid ornamentation in the form of "widely spaced ridges or bands and branches, and at most forming a wide-meshed broken reticulum", fine lines rather numerous but not connected, isolated warts and particles, prominences 0.4-0.8 microns; basidia 4-spored, 27-34 x 8-9 microns, clavate, colorless in KOH; pleurocystidia: macrocystidia scattered, 30-55 x 5-8 microns, projecting appreciably, "filamentous-clavate, or fusoid, both with content amorphous and refractive", pseudocystidia 6-8 microns broad, filamentous; cheilocystidia scattered (absent in some sections), 24-32 x 4-6 microns, subclavate, apices often tapering

Spore deposit:
white to cream

Notes:
Material was cited from ID, AK, MA, MI, and Switzerland. There is a collection from BC at the Pacific Forestry Centre. It occurs in CA (Desjardin). It has been reported from WA by Andrew Parker, pers. comm.

EDIBILITY

poisonous (Phillips)